


Seeds to be sown

by mikhala_c



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creepy Fluff, Horror lovestory, Lovecraftian, Lovesickness, Mild Blood, Mystery, Other, Romance, Urban Fantasy, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2016-09-06
Packaged: 2018-08-13 10:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7972753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikhala_c/pseuds/mikhala_c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is a dangerous thing. It can make people do foolish things and sometimes we love beyond reason. The best you can hope for is that your love is returned. In some cases though that is the truly dangerous part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seeds to be sown

When he was fifteen he fell in love with a girl who had an orchard in her backyard. 

It was odd but not the sort of odd that you give much thought to when looking into a pair of eyes so green you’d swear you could see the wind blowing the leaves in them. One odd was interchangeable as the other, she was beautiful and lived in a fancy old house with her extended family and Michael loved her.  He loved her enough to hang around the city even when he got a scholarship to Western for football. He stayed and did odd jobs until he was old enough to apply to the police academy.

He loved her but those green eyes never seemed to see him so he had to do something worthwhile with his life.  
   
It wasn’t everything he could have been but it was good; he had a good job, he helped people, and he had friends, if he stared a little too long at the house and the orchard when he was leaving work no one cared enough to comment. 

He loved her and he was stupid in his love.

Chased a suspect onto private property even when he’d been told to break off and wait for backup. He went over the old wrought iron gate and ran after the man, through the hedges and into the orchard full of bright red apples that never seemed to come down because the man had a gun and she was home.

She was always at home. Never left and only seen in windows anymore. 

He remembers the sound of the gunfire and how much it burned. He can press his fingers now to the places that  burned and bled and only smooth skin lays under his touch but he remembers it and knows it was real. Knows he was dying, bleeding out under the tree and watching the leaves turn sickly brown over his head as the perp whimpered from his own wounds fifteen feet away, soft moans and this strange cracking sound that set his teeth on edge.

Until she was there and her green eyes weighed him down and he forgot everything else. He remembers her telling him he was  _no good for the fruit_. Remembers the sight of a silver knife flashing as she delicately split a browning apple open, spilling out mealy flesh until slick fingers pressed the seeds from the heart of the rotting fruit into the bullet wounds. The burn of fingers and the sharp edges of the seeds in raw wounds until spots danced in front of his eyes and everything went grey.

He remembers it all but he also remembers waking up in his patrol car to the smoke and the pain in his head. Sideswiped by the perp who fled the scene. There are wanted posters and rewards and plausible reasons for all his memories.  
   
He would have believed them more if he couldn’t see the rotten brown trees in the middle of the orchard from his desk at work. 

If he couldn’t see black root like things under his skin in the mirror after his showers and those spots he remembers burning but never show the scars when he looked down. 

Every Friday after for three years there was a red apple on his desk and he thought she loved him at least a little back. 

But the rot spread, the brown tree grew to two and then three and four years out the orchard was a twisted thing and the impossibly old house started to look dry and strange. He tried to ignore the things he saw out of the corner of his eyes sometimes at twilight now and to keep his head down. He started losing friends, losing time, and forgetting appointments and parties. He missed them but they weren’t as important as his job, that chase of the guilty, or the longing that made him stand in the shadow of the rotting house and stare up at the empty windows. He knew he couldn’t keep going like that but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t do anything but chase down suspects and wait in the shadow of the house.

Not eat.

Not sleep.

Nothing but  _the chase_  and _the longing_.  
   
This most recent Friday there was a train ticket in an envelope with five seeds instead of an apple and when he looked toward the house he saw the flames licking up the front. He was so struck by the sight he stood at his office window and stared as the mansion and the orchard burned until the smoke blocked the sun and only a few stubborn twisted trunks were left.  _The chase_  and  _the longing_  gnawed at him, twisted up in his veins now that there was no shadow to stand in.

He loved her and now she was gone.

She’d loved him at least a little.

He walked to his boss’ office and quit before he could think better of it. It didn’t take long to pack a bag, he didn’t have much that he cared anything about and the ticket was like a weight and a lodestone all in one. He presented it at the train station two towns over and got blank looks and told there was no stop on the line by that name but the back of the ticket had one word written on it in black scrawl, like roots on the paper spread to make letters that crept away as you read them.  
   
_**Wait**_.  
   
So he waited.  
   
Waited until the station closed and the lights were turned out.

Waited until he could feel the vibrations as a train rumbled out of the tunnel to pull to a stop at the station. Waited until the doors opened and he could step aboard. 

He wasn’t sure when they took his ticket but he had a half stub clutched in the hand that held the seeds when that longing finally eased and he felt like he was looking at the world again. He just wasn’t sure what he was seeing; the train was just a little off center, skewed just a little to the left, and he couldn’t read the destination on the ticket anymore. It didn’t slow at the other stations just ran through the night until that left leaning rock of the car on the rails lulled him into his first real sleep in weeks.

The shriek of the whistle jarred him awake as he felt the train finally begin to slow. He drug a hand over his face and got unsteadily to his feet in time to see a family leave the train car when he could have sworn he’d been alone. He shouldered his duffle bag and straightened his denim jacket and the hood of the sweatshirt he wore under it in case the train had taken him somewhere cold. Stepping out onto the platform of the train station he blinked under the glare of the lights that buzzed and scratched idly at the burning itching spots on his chest as he looked around for a clue as to where he was or even what time it was beyond the faint light of morning.

He probably wasn’t much of a sight himself, green eyes ringed in shadows and blonde curls lying limp. All his healthy square jawed features made lean and sharp by both the longing and real hunger. He licked at his chapped lips and cleared his throat; he felt withered and dried out but the city around him looked old and he hills beyond green and new. It was beautiful and he loved it at least a little on first sight.

It was a good place to put down roots.


End file.
